CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. - Can you imagine getting shot in the heart - and then living to tell the tale? A 17-year-old from Dexter will be telling the story for years to come.

It turns out he survived because he left the nail in his heart until he got to the hospital. "I thought I was going to die," Matt Robinson says. You would too if you shot a nail through your heart.

Matt calls it an accident he'll never forget. "I was helping frame up a barn and the guy was lowering the gun down the ladder to me. The nail gun swung, my finger hit the trigger and it hit me in the chest," he explains.

The three and a quarter inch nail, went through Matt's right ventricle, and came out the other side. "I dropped the gun and looked down and I could see the head of the nail stuck on the outside of my shirt. I wanted to take it out, but I was scared and didn't know what to think really," he says.

Had Matt pulled the nail out - the St. Louis doctor who performed heart surgery on him says he would have died. Dr. Hendrick Barner pulled the nail out about four hours after the accident. While inside, the nail acted like a plug - leaving no space for blood to seep out.

Still, the computer generated 3D images leave even technicians in shock. "It's the first time I've seen a foreign body through the heart and someone survived that, and was actually talking - it's surprising to us," one technician tells Heartland News.

"It was bad timing!" Matt's girlfriend, Brittany Morgan says. Pregnant with his twins, she can joke about the scare now - but at the time, the episode with the nail gun terrified her. "Everybody told me if it goes through your heart you die, so I was really scared," she says.

As for Matt - he's not giving up on his construction job just yet. "Construction's something I like to do -you get to do different stuff,' he says.

Amazingly, the accident happened on a Monday, Matt had surgery that day, and was up and walking by Wednesday.

So a remarkable recovery and an unbelievable story almost any way you look at it.

Matt's still on pain medication and will probably not be able to return to work for a couple of months. He says the next heart stopping moment he expects to have will be the birth of his twin babies in the next few days.

Posts: 2558 | Location: The Great State of Texas | Registered: December 26, 2001

Meat-eating killer frogs have invaded a pond in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, leaving environmentalists wondering how to stop their deadly march before they move on to bigger waters.

The African clawed frogs have chomped through everything from turtles to fish in Lily Pond, near the California Academy of Sciences, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The frogs, which can grow up to 5 inches in length, have even gone cannibalistic.

"They've eaten everything they can get their mouths around, and now they're eating each other," Eric Mills of the animal-rights group Action for Animals told the newspaper.

Park officials have pulled some 2,500 of the frogs from the pond since 2003. They are taken to a fish and game facility where they are euthanized by a nerve poison, the paper said.

But the frogs keep coming back. Last week, the city's Animal Control and Welfare Commission voted to ask the city for cash to drain the pond and terminate the population once and for all, the paper reported.

"The fear is they will get out," Richard Schulke, president of the city's Animal Control and Welfare Commission, told the paper.

Harris County Child Protective Services has taken emergency custody of a 5-week-old infant whose mother said his genitals were severed by the family dog.

The baby boy's 25-year-old mother said she woke up from a nap Wednesday to find the family's pet Daschund standing over the mutilated infant; but doctors say the child's injuries are inconsistent with dog bites, said CPS spokeswoman Estella Olguin.

The mother told investigators she was sleeping alone in her apartment in the 400 block of El Dorado in Webster when she heard the baby crying and awoke to find him bleeding next to the dog, Olguin said.

She ran to a neighbor's house for help and an ambulance transported the baby to Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition late Wednesday.

"When the child showed up at the hospital, he had massive blood loss and was in shock," Olguin said. "He has undergone a couple of surgeries already and probably will undergo another tomorrow."

No charges have been filed in the case, but CPS, Houston Police and Animal Control are investigating the incident, Olguin said.

"Someone did this to this baby and according to doctors it couldn't have been the way the mama says it happened," Olguin said. "As far as my career at CPS, I've never seen anything like this."

Olguin said the unidentified baby's mother was living with the child's biological father at the time of the accident, but the couple was not married. They have no other children, she said.

CPS investigators have interviewed the baby's parents as part of an ongoing investigation that will include psychological evaluations. On March 26, CPS will return to court to determine long-term custody of the child.

"This is going to affect him forever, even if he survives," Olguin said.

A man attempting to enter a Love Field-area convenience store overnight became stuck in a rooftop grill vent and died, Dallas police said Thursday.

A worker at the Express Mart in the 7400 block of Harry Hines Boulevard entered the store about 9:30 a.m. and found a pair of legs hanging through the vent hood above the grill, said Dallas police Senior Cpl. Janice Crowther.

The man apparently got stuck and suffocated, she said.

Dallas Fire-Rescue responded to the scene and had to use special cutting tools to remove and pull the body back out from the roof, she said.

The man was average in size and appeared to be in his early 20s, Senior Cpl. Crowther said. It was unclear how long he had been dead. The employee told police she closed the store about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

Please don't let suit lie against the store owner for some sort of negligence in failing to anticipate break-ins of this fashion. Does anyone else recall the case a few years ago, I believe in another state, where the thief fell through the roof of premises he was trying to enter and successfully sued?

No Charges Will Be Filed Against Radio Station in Deadly Water-Drinking Contest

Tuesday , April 03, 2007

By Catherine Donaldson-Evans

No criminal charges will be filed in the case of Sacramento, Calif., mother of three who died early this year while competing in a water-drinking contest run by a local radio station, FOXNews.com has confirmed.

Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully released a statement late Monday that said her office had determined the 28-year-old Jennifer Strange willingly took part in the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" game hosted by KDND-FM, and didn't show visible signs that she was markedly ill or in danger of dying.

"Jennifer Strange was an adult who was voluntarily participating in the radio contest," Scully's office said in the statement. "She knew what the contest involved when she entered it and had the option to stop or discontinue her participation in the contest at any time.

Strange consumed two gallons of water during the contest Jan. 12, then complained of feeling sick with a bad headache and disoriented. She went home and died later that day of water intoxication. Her mother found her body.

The contest prize was a Nintendo Wii game unit and required contestants to drink a certain amount of water in a certain timeframe � first an 8-ounce bottle of water every 15 minutes and later a 16-ounce bottle every 10 minutes.

The winner was determined to be the person who consumed the most water without urinating or vomiting.

"The location where the contest took place, while not in a public area, was in an area from which she was free to leave at any time; and she was constantly observed by other people including contestants, their supporters and radio employees," the district attorney's statement read.

"Ms. Strange also was interviewed twice on air by the DJs during the contest with no apparent difficulty."

Several employees of KDND were fired in the wake of Strange's death. The family lawyer, Roger Dreyer, told The Sacramento Chronicle that the decision not to prosecute the radio station "makes total sense."

"We never felt that the acts of the individuals rose to the level of criminal acts or criminal intent," the paper quoted Dreyer as saying. "In fact, it simply validates our viewpoint that the responsible parties in this case are Entercom management."

Entercom Communications is the radio station's parent company.

Strange's family, including her widower and three children, have filed a civil wrongful-death lawsuit Jan. 25 against KDND station manager John Geary, the DJs who hosted the morning program that held the contest and Entercom Communications.

CORPUS CHRISTI - A 91-year-old man from South Texas is slowly recovering after he was stung by an estimated 1,000 Africanized honey bees at his ranch last month.

Manuel Trevino said he was cutting brush on his San Diego ranch March 31 when he backed his tractor close to a windmill, unaware of an underground hive of bees.

"They came flying," he said. "I had on gloves, but was wearing short sleeves, they were all on my face and covered my arms."

He said he fell off the tractor, swatting his face. The bees followed him as he walked a half-mile to his daughter's house.

"His arms and head were as black as an unshaven beard with those things," said his wife, Florence Trevino. She said his face puffed out "three times its size," and his eyes were swollen shut for five days.

It took doctors at Christus Spohn Hospital Shoreline, who estimated the number of stings, 12 days to remove all the stingers, treat his eyes, and supervise dialysis after bee venom shut down his kidneys.

His daughter, 55-year-old Gracie Gonzales, said it was a miracle he survived.

"He's like a cat with nine lives, either lucky or God's just not ready for him yet," she said.

A Dallas woman who prosecutors say practiced smothering her 18-month-old daughter before killing her was convicted Wednesday of capital murder.

Kira Dodson, now 21, was given an automatic life sentence for covering her daughter's face with a furry purple pillow until she stopped breathing.

Prosecutor Mandy Griffith called Ms. Dodson a monster. She said parents typically quell their children's fears about "what goes bump in the night." But Kay Lynn Velazquez didn't know that she should fear her mother, she said.

"I only hope God granted her the mercy of not opening her eyes ... of not knowing who held the pillow over her face," Ms. Griffith told jurors in closing arguments. "I only hope the last dream she had before she died was a pleasant one."

Ms. Griffith pressed the pillow, embroidered with the word "Princess," into the railing in front of the jury box as she spoke.

Ms. Dodson admitted in a written statement to police that she killed Kay Lynn in April 2005. But she testified that her admission to police was a lie because she was coerced.

The jury of four women and eight men was sequestered while deliberating for three days. Initially, the jury deadlocked 6-6 while members debated Ms. Dodson's fate. Then they voted 9-3 and 10-2 before finally reaching a verdict.

Jurors did not discuss their deliberations with attorneys after the trial. They also declined to comment as they left the courthouse.

Ms. Dodson did not visibly react when the verdict was read. Her attorney, Paul Johnson, said his client was "expectedly upset, taking it pretty hard."

Ms. Dodson's family and friends left the courtroom without commenting. Some began sobbing in the hallway.

Mr. Johnson said he never expected the trial and deliberations to take a week and a half.

"It's hard to be the lone holdout or couple of holdouts after a couple of nights in a hotel," he said. "I just hope no one was forced to violate their conscience."

During the trial, a mental health expert was standing by to testify for the defense but was not called.

Ms. Dodson has another child, a son she gave up her parental rights to before her daughter's death. He has since been adopted. Ms. Dodson had discussed allowing the same family to adopt her daughter. But she believed her family thought badly of her for giving up her son, according to testimony.

During their deliberations, jurors sent a variety of notes to the court. They asked about the time of a 911 call, the testimony of police officers and phone calls the day Kay Lynn died. They also told the court twice that they were deadlocked.

Ms. Griffith and Mr. Johnson said they could not tell from the notes what issues caused the stalemate.

"I try not to read too much into notes," Ms. Griffith said after the trial.

Had Ms. Dodson not admitted killing her daughter, the medical examiner would not have been able to determine how the girl died, according to testimony.

Mr. Johnson argued that Ms. Dodson's statement was a false confession. He told jurors that police bullied her until they made her believe she killed her daughter.

"They cannot even prove in this case that a crime occurred," Mr. Johnson told jurors. "Where is the search for truth? It's not a search for truth. You haven't seen it in this courtroom."

But prosecutors said the confession and the fact that the girl's autopsy results are consistent with someone who was suffocated prove their case.

Prosecutor Eren Price asked jurors to consider what someone could tell them that would make them believe they had killed their child. She told them Kay Lynn was "loved by just about everyone but her own mother."

Two weeks before the girl died, paramedics were called to the apartment because Kay Lynn had stopped breathing. Ms. Dodson's boyfriend, Michael Irwin, revived the girl by pressing on her stomach before paramedics arrived. Doctors found nothing to suggest a medical problem caused her to stop breathing.

Prosecutors suggested this was when Ms. Dodson practiced killing her daughter.

The day the child died, Ms. Griffith said, "Kira Lynn Dodson made sure � this time � she wasn't coming back."

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- A gang of armed robbers forced a man to strip naked and then glued him to his exercise bike and sealed his lips with more glue while they ransacked his house, according to a published report.

Kobus van Deventer, 50, was left stuck to the bike with super-strong glue for three hours until he was rescued by his girlfriend, the South African Press Association reported.

His assailants, dressed in suits and armed with handguns and an automatic assault rifle, forced their way into van Deventer's car and made the property developer drive to his house.

"The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was super-glued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were super-glued as were his feet and then his mouth was super-glued shut," Mark Stokoe, spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, told SAPA. Workers from Netcare, a private company, provided aid at the scene.

Stokoe said the robbers ransacked van Deventer's house and safe while "helping themselves to Chivas Regal and the like."

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world, with about 50 people being slain everyday. The government is desperate to counter the country's violent image, especially in the run up to the soccer World Cup it will host in 2010.

May 16, 2007, 5:40AMMan charged with burning baby in microwave in Galveston

GALVESTON � A 19-year-old has been charged with injury to a child after police say his 2-month-old daughter was burned when he placed her in a microwave.

Joshua Mauldin of Arkansas was in the Galveston County jail early today. Mauldin, whose bond is set at $250,000, is set to go before a grand jury today.

He faces a charge of injury to a child, causing serious bodily harm. The charge carries a possible prison term of five to 99 years, as well as a fine of up to $10,000.

At Shriners Burns Hospital on Tuesday, doctors treated third-degree burns the infant suffered to the left side of her face and left hand.

Maudlin arrived at a Galveston hotel last week along with the baby, his wife and mother. He called 911 on Thursday, saying that his baby had been burned in the hotel room when he tripped while carrying a pot of hot water to make coffee.

But police Sgt. Annie Almendarez said investigators later decided the child's injuries were not consistent with that story. She said investigators believe the child was in the microwave for 10 to 20 seconds.

At the time the child was injured, her mother and Mauldin's mother were picking up dinner at a nearby restaurant.

According to police reports, Mauldin told investigators God ordered him to go to Galveston.

Harrison County Sheriff Tom McCool reported to Harrison County Commissioners Monday morning that his office lost a patrol car early Sunday.

"It was a rather unbelievable event," McCool told the court.

He said a man had tried to steal a vehicle from a site across the street from Harrison County's Road and Bridge Department.

When that failed, he climbed the fence and entered a security area at the county barn on Five Notch Road.

The man searched until he located a set of keys hidden in the patrol car and drove the vehicle through what the sheriff described as "heavy-duty gates," which are always secured with chains and locks, he added.

Chief Deputy Bobby Gibbons said the man drove the car to his residence and hid it in a grove of pines.

McCool said it was "a very well used squad car" � a spare vehicle �and damage was so extensive that it probably was not worth repairing.

Arrested was Dustin Cruse, 19, of 4275 U.S. Highway 43 South. He was booked into county jail at 10 p.m. Sunday night at which time Cruse was found to be under the influence of alcohol, marijuana and the prescription drug, Xanax, McCool said.

The sheriff noted Cruse "was the same individual who had been (illegally) getting fuel at the road and bridge department. It was a very ridiculous and criminal act," the sheriff said, adding his office will abandon the policy of leaving keys in vehicles at the site.

An ex-lovers' spat led to a man scalded with boiling water and a woman stabbed in the neck, according to Beaumont police reports.

A 33-year-old man went to his ex-girlfriend's house in the 5000 block of Bonnie Lee Lane about 8 p.m. Tuesday, the report states.

He arrived to find his 31-year-old ex-girlfriend with a new boyfriend, 26, the report states.

The man then took a pot of boiling water off the stove and tried to splash it on the couple, but a door was shut in his face, the report states.

Water splashed off the door and hit the man, causing serious burns, the report states.

The man, who suffered chest burns, was taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, the report states.

At 9:23 p.m., the ex-girlfriend went to see the burn victim's current girlfriend at an apartment in the 4000 block of Maida Road, the report states.

The ex-girlfriend used a knife to stab the 27-year-old woman in the neck, the report states.

The woman was taken to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital, where it took 10 stitches to close the wound, which was not life-threatening, the report states. The woman refused to press charges against her attacker, the report states.

Man stabbed with broken bottleBy Deanna Boyddboyd@star-telegram.comFORT WORTH � Seconds after warning a man not to hit her again or she would cut him, a woman broke a beer bottle Thursday night and stabbed the man in the neck and arm, police said.

Alberto Hernandez, 23, suffered a stab wound to the right and left sides of his neck and to his arm. He was transported to John Peter Smith Hospital but is expected to need stitches only for his injuries, police said Friday.

Sgt. Jim Lankford said Hernandez and the woman, 29-year-old Shanon Sledge, were drinking in an alley near Seminary and Hemphill Street when the altercation happened shortly after 8 p.m. Lankford said the victim reportedly slapped the woman.

BERLIN (AP) -- An unusually aggressive squirrel attacked three people in a German town before its last victim finished it off with a crutch, police said Wednesday.

The rodent jumped through a living-room window in Passau, on the Austrian border, on Tuesday and bit its first victim. With the squirrel hanging on by its teeth, the woman ran out into the street, where she managed to shake the animal off.

The squirrel then bit a builder before fleeing into a nearby garden, where it bit a 72-year-old man who eventually killed it with his crutch, police said.

SAN ANTONIO � The calico kitten was riddled with fleas and so scrawny you could see its backbone.

Yet the animal was in far better shape Thursday morning than it had been several hours earlier, when two off-duty security guards on a secluded South Side road saw a man and a woman tying the creature to some railroad tracks with a shoelace, a police report said.

The couple got away, but the kitten, christened Tracks, got a temporary home with one of its rescuers.

"We're trying to make it fat," said John Hernandez, 22, feeding the skeletal weeks-old feline a second can of beef and gravy.

Police are investigating the case as one of deadly conduct because Hernandez and the other guard, Jacob Salinas, said the man pointed a gun at them.

The city also could assign an animal cruelty officer to the case.

The strange case comes on the heels of tougher animal-cruelty laws passed this year by Texas lawmakers.

House Bill 2328 would allow pet owners to be punished for seriously injuring their animals and extends protection to stray dogs and cats, defining cruelty as something that "causes or permits unjustified or unwarranted pain or suffering."

Cruising near the intersection of Shane and Villamain about 3 a.m., Hernandez and Salinas noticed a young man and woman standing over the Union Pacific railroad tracks, a police report said. The friends felt something was wrong and doubled back and noticed a kitten in the woman's hand.

"They knew we were watching them," Hernandez said.

So Hernandez switched off his headlights and parked nearby.

"It was disgusting, really, seeing someone tie a kitten to the tracks," Salinas said, "just for the joy of seeing it get run over."

The couple got into a green Saturn and pulled away. Hernandez drove closer and killed his engine. Silence. Then the high-pitched cry of the kitten. It was upside-down, its back legs bound to the tracks, he said.

Hernandez and Salinas untied the creature, got back in the pickup and called police. They caught up to the Saturn and recorded the license plate number but backed off when the man stopped the car, retrieved a gun from the trunk and pointed it at them, Hernandez and Salinas said.

Mass. police hunt for suspect who used cat as molotov cocktailBy Michele McPhee The Boston Herald

BOSTON � A sicko set a cat on fire in East Boston, and then used the burning, screeching animal as a live Molotov cocktail, chucking it at the window of a house, a crime that investigators believe could be connected to gang violence.

The live fireball was heaved at a first-floor window at 204 Princeton St. in the Eagle Hill section of the neighborhood, leaving the charred outline of the tortured animal in the screen of the two-family home.

``This kid threw something at the house. It was on fire. It was making noises,'' said construction worker Juan Martinez, who was driving by the attack. ``It was terrible.''

Investigators are exploring whether the incident could be related to the MS-13 gang, a notorious enterprise with strong roots in East Boston. Police sources said there is usually unexplained violence on the 13th of every month committed at the hands of young punks associated with the gang.

``We don't have any strong leads, but it is the 13th,'' said one investigator. ``We are looking at that as a possible angle.''

Thehome owner was uncooperative with police yesterday, telling detectives that he did not know the names of his first-floor tenants, according to a BPD report.

``The owner stated he came out of his house due to the noise and commotion made by the fire department and observed that it was a burned cat at the side of his house,'' the BPD report said. ``He didn't know the name or the number of his tenant, and was not able to provide any information about the person living on the first floor.''

Those tenants were not home when the burning cat was hurled at their window, breaking it and burning the screen.